


Shiny New Fears

by Violet_Witch



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Couple, Sort Of, Tim's shiny new fear of fatherhood, With a smidge of angst, they're deeply traumatized individuals okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26722987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violet_Witch/pseuds/Violet_Witch
Summary: Tim and Kon have been married for a couple years when Kon finally brings up The Kid Thing. Tim is... less than prepared for this, but goddamn if he's not going to figure it out.Featuring soft husbands, the Brood Jar, Star Trek, and negotiations.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comments: 14
Kudos: 170





	Shiny New Fears

**Author's Note:**

> School started, so my more or less permanent state of existence now is stressed, which translates to eating ice cream and writing lots of fluff that accidentally turns angsty after I have a bad day. Sorry not sorry, at least I provide comfort with my hurt. And hey, at least I’m finally writing Tim when he’s in a fairly good place, so there’s that.
> 
> Enjoy!

_If this were a movie,_ Kon thinks nonsensically, _there’d be a clock ticking in the background to add suspense._

He can practically hear the sound now, a steady echoing noise that’s disproportionately loud due to the near absolute silence between him and his husband. Not awkward cricket silence, but the heavy kind that seems to stew and thicken by the minute as Tim takes small, polite bites of his food, and Kon doesn’t touch his at all.

Unfortunately for the ambiance of their night, the only analog clock in the Drake-Kent household is a wrist watch that was once Tim’s father’s, and it’s batteries are removed so the sound doesn’t drive Kon crazy when he’s trying to sleep.

He considers, just for a moment, going and getting it. He reaches the point of raking his mind for where Tim squirreled away the spare batteries before he realizes that he’s intentionally avoiding the issue at hand.

The thing about the tense silence between them is that from Tim’s perspective, it’s just a slightly puzzled one. He arrived for dinner a little late, but he’d given Kon an appropriate amount of forewarning, so the food was just coming out of the oven when he’d walked in. He’d noticed Kon’s flayed nerves immediately, but he’d just shot his husband a questioning look and let it be when Kon shook his head. 

Tim’s sort of awesome like that. Not because he knows when not to push—lord knows that didn’t come from intuition. By nature, Tim has a habit of pushing until he gets answers, or, if he thinks it’ll be faster, circumventing the other person entirely to find what he’s looking for himself. No, what astonishes Kon so much about his husband is that Tim has put in the conscious effort to learn Kon, and to get better at giving him time when he needs to get his thoughts together.

When he realized Kon was too nervous to properly hold a conversation, Tim let it be. He complimented the food (Kon’s best approximation of Ma’s famous lasagna recipe), and told Kon a little about his day, but kept the conversation in mindless territory that required minimal response from him. Now, the only hint that Tim even knows something is amiss is the focus in his gaze when he looks at Kon over the lip of his wine glass.

Thinking about his husband like this makes Kon’s heart beat harder in his chest for an entirely new reason. The warmth of these thoughts seems to chase away the cold sharpness of his anxiety and finally sets Kon at ease enough to say what he needs to say.

Deliberately, Kon sets down the cutlery he’s been fidgeting with, forcing his voice into an approximation of even. “Tim?”

“Yes?” his husband replies immediately, setting down his glass.

This is it. Just put it out there, and see what happens. Kon takes a deep breath.

“I want kids.”

He doesn’t know when he screwed his eyes shut, but in the impossibly long pause after his declaration, the lack of feedback is a hundred times worse than the anxiety of anticipation was. Cautiously, he pries his eyes open to take a look.

Tim’s eyes are round with the kind of shock that means his brilliant mind with its thousands of contingencies genuinely hadn’t seen this coming. Comfortingly, it’s the same look he gave Kon after their first kiss, and after a week or so of agonized waffling about that, Tim had very wholeheartedly reciprocated, so maybe, Kon hopes, history is about to repeat itself.

At length, Tim says, “You do?” as if Kon might have changed his mind in the last couple seconds.

Smiling tentatively, Kon affirms, “Yeah. I really do.” Tim doesn’t ask, but Kon feels compelled to explain further anyway. “Remember when we went to Lian’s birthday party a couple months ago? That’s when I first started thinking about it. I wanted to be really sure before I brought it up with you because I know that when we got married, children certainly weren’t in the equation. I mean, we were barely in our twenties, obviously we weren’t ready then.”

Tim had been twenty three, to be exact. (Kon’s age is much harder to nail down, but his papers put him at twenty four.) They were married beneath a cherry tree in front of half the hero community, but their vows were said in their apartment two nights before, whispered into the crook of Kon’s neck and the shell of Tim’s ear as they lay together.

Kon rests his hand on the table between them, and Tim takes it without hesitation. From the small smile that mirrors Kon’s own, he knows that Tim is remembering that day too.

“But I think we’re ready now,” Kon goes on, his voice soft, “and I really want to be a dad.”

Rather than meeting his eyes, Tim stares at their joined hands, playing with Kon’s fingers before intertwining them with his own. When he looks up, he’s smiling, just a little. “You would make a fantastic father.”

“ _ We _ .” Kon corrects immediately. “ _We_ would make fantastic fathers.”

The light in Tim’s eyes flickers, and his gaze drops again, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. “I’m not so sure.” Kon starts to protest, but Tim cuts him off. “I didn’t exactly have the best role models.”

Kon wants to shrug it off. He wants to tell Tim that it doesn’t matter and that he’s always been a better man than his father, but it  _ does _ matter. It matters to Tim, and Kon knows better than to brush off his husband’s anxieties, particularly when it comes to his family.

“Between the two of us, the best father figure we have is probably Pa,” Kon says lightly instead.

Tim laughs softly. “Alfred’s not too shabby either, but I guess he’s always been more like a grandpa.”

“And Clark’s more like a cousin to me.”

“Bruce is father-esque, but very much not a role model.”

“Lex, of course, is an abomination.”

They both giggle at that.

“We’re not doing much better in the mother department either,” Tim says.

Kon hums his agreement, and a comfortable silence falls over them. He takes a moment to just look at his husband. 

Tim was always beautiful, but his profile has sharpened with age, leaving behind the rounded edges of teenagedom for delicate features and cheekbones that could cut glass. In adulthood, he’s finally stopped letting his hair grow to his shoulders, and Kon mourns the loss of silky strands he could tangle his fingers in, but the short waves he keeps it in now are really no less appealing. His body, at least, hasn’t changed much since Kon first learned it. It’s still muscular and lean, but not bulky, and, to his husband’s eternal annoyance, he’s still a good several inches shorter than Kon.

When they were just kids, Kon called Tim ‘pretty boy’ and tried to make it sound like an insult, like he didn’t mean it with every fiber of his being. Now, he can just tell the truth: Tim is absolutely gorgeous.

Standing up, Kon rounds the table to kneel at the side of his husband’s chair, pulling Tim’s legs around until they’re facing each other. He leaves his hands resting lightly on the back of Tim’s knees as he says, “Timothy Jackson Drake—” he’d kept his name when they got married for the dinner reservations it got them—“you would be an excellent father. You are thoughtful, and compassionate, and devoted, and I know you’d probably read every parenting book you could get your hands on so at least we won’t be totally unprepared.”

Tim snorts.

Kon can’t help but kiss him. When he pulls back, he doesn’t go far. “I’m not going to pretend that this won’t be hard, and I’m sure we’ll get lost, but we’ll be lost together, and if there’s one thing I know for absolute fact,” he kisses Tim again, “it’s that when we’re together, there isn’t anything we can’t do. We’ll figure it out as we go, and even if we make a million mistakes, we will love our child unconditionally.  _ That _ is why I know we’re going to make excellent fathers.”

Tim presses their foreheads together, eyes falling closed as he sighs against Kon’s mouth. After a moment, he huffs a disbelieving laugh and says plainly, “I believe you.”

“Of course you do. I’m right.”

“Asshole,” Tim jokes, playfully pushing him away only to immediately loop his arms around Kon’s neck and pull him back in. “I believe you, but… ” he shakes his head. “It’s not that simple.”

“It’s not?” Kon asks, worry flitting across his face.

“I’m not saying no,” Tim rushes to reassure him, “I’m just saying that we need to put more thought into this.”

Kon’s already put two months worth of thought into this, but he keeps quiet. Tim is only starting the consideration process now, and if it took Kon two months, then he’ll be lucky if Tim comes to a decision in the next year.

If it takes that long, Kon will wait.

… But he’s really hoping it doesn’t.

Tim’s biting his lip, his eyes distant with thought, until finally, he says, “Raising a kid is really complicated, and there are a mountain of details to work out. Things we’ve never talked about that we should discuss before we go any further.”

Kon nods his agreement, curious about the furrow of Tim’s brow that’s consistent with his scheming face. 

“I propose that we both write down all of the topics we need to hash out on slips of paper, and put them in a jar. Every night, we’ll pull out one slip and talk about it until we reach some sort of agreement. If we can’t reach a compromise in just one night, then the slip goes back in the jar to be reevaluated later. It kills two birds with one stone; I’ll have time to better acclimatize to the idea and make sure I’m completely on board,  _ and  _ we’ll be better prepared.”

He doesn’t add that it will also reveal any big issues between them that would stop them from having a child, but Kon understands that’s part of it anyway.

To be honest, Kon would have said yes to anything Tim proposed short of flipping a coin (maybe even that), but this is better than he could have expected. It’s not a definite yes, but with the hopeful smile Tim is giving him, it feels almost as good as.

He kisses his husband thoroughly. “Yes. Let’s do it."

“Okay,” Tim breaths back against Kon’s lips, and it sounds like a promise.

~~~

They decide to take the rest of the week to write their slips, and start on Friday night. With a laugh, Kon selects Tim’s monster sized coffee mug from the kitchen cabinet to be their ‘jar.’ It’s usually reserved for all-nighters spent hacking, and says in bold print,  _ ‘Batman wishes he had this ass. _ ’ It was a present from Steph.

Tim raises an eyebrow in silent judgement for the choice, but the mug ends up on their bedside table anyway. The kitchen would have been more central, but Tim tactfully points out that it might be best to keep this between the two of them for now, and guests are both plentiful, and usually arrive unannounced.

Kon writes all his slips that first night, but Tim draws the process out. They’ll be chatting about nothing, or watching a movie, and suddenly he’ll stand up and vanish to the bedroom to scribble something down. He does it about once an hour, and yet every single time he returns from the bedroom, he finds Kon grinning like a man gone mad.

They have a lot of couch sex over those couple days.

(When Kon pulls Tim down onto his lap Thursday night, his husband murmurs something about ‘pavlovian training’ and ‘artificial aphrodisiacs.’ Whatever his point was, he doesn’t get around to making it.)

By the time Friday rolls around, the mug is full.

~~~

“Are you ready?”

“Yes I’m ready. I was ready when you asked me before dinner, and when you were doing the dishes too.”

The words don’t even put a dent in Kon’s smile. “Can’t blame a guy for making sure.” He doesn’t give Tim a chance to respond before shaking up the mug, and plucking a folded slip from its depths. He can feel the anticipation building in the air between them, nerves and excitement mingling together.

Carefully, he unfolds the slip. There’s just one word, unmistakable in Tim’s scrawl. “‘Religion, question mark,’” he reads monotonously.

Tim rolls his eyes. “Normally people express punctuation verbally via things like, I don’t know,  _ inflection _ .”

“Never heard of it,” Kon replies briskly. “Anyway, I didn’t think you were religious.”

“I’m not,” Tim bites his lip in a familiar gesture (all of his gestures are familiar) that means he’s holding himself back from saying something Bat level dramatic and angsty.

Kon sighs. “Go ahead.”

Tim glances pointedly at the Brood Jar on the living room side table, currently filled with roughly forty dollars and very nearly reaching date night levels. They get a lot more of those since Kon declared fines would be extended to guests. Jason paid nearly two hundred dollars last time he came by to have a beer almost entirely for zombie jokes that he declared,  _ ‘totally worth it.’ _

“Waived for the duration of our negotiations,” Kon announces magnanimously, channeling a near perfect imitation of Tim’s boardroom voice.

“As I was saying,” Tim always sounds smug when Kon makes concessions concerning the Brood Jar, but he’s so cute when he’s smug that Kon can’t help but categorize it as a win-win, “I’m not. It’s really hard to believe in anything when you’ve seen and experienced first hand the horrors man can accomplish all on his own, and to claim there’s something bigger than us controlling any of it is just an excuse people use to justify actions they don’t want to take responsibility for.”

“To be fair, that’s hardly all religion is, and I’d argue most religious people still believe in free will,” Kon says diplomatically.

“Of course, but that was the way religion was presented to me as a child, and why I rejected it at first. After that, I could never really get into it because by the time I put any thought into other ways of experiencing religion, I was already too used to my existence in the universe being an accident of science, and any soul I may have to be nothing but a metaphorical construct based on the electrical impulses firing in my brain to create sentience as our meager understanding of it is.”

Kon quirks an eyebrow worthy of Alfred. “And how old were you when that happened?”

“Oh, thirteen or so. I’d call those the dark ages, but, well, we both know that’s not true.”

“You are  _ really  _ milking this temporary suspension of the Brood Jar for all it’s worth, aren’t you?”

Tim grins at him. “What would the point be otherwise?”

“Of course,” Kon agrees sardonically. “You still haven’t gotten to the question mark aspect of this religion.”

“Well, I’m not religious, but you are.”

“Agnostic, but yes, I suppose.”

“So, our child could be.”

“Could be what?”

Tim rolls his eyes like Kon is being intentionally difficult. “Look, personally, I don’t think there’s anything out there, but… I understand the comfort people draw from it. Sometimes, I wish I could believe in a happy afterlife and a loving God. I think it would be… nice.”

“Wait, so you want us to raise our child in a religion neither of us is a part of?” Kon asks, expression scrunching up in confusion.

“Maybe? I’m just saying that religion can give a child a strong sense of belonging and community, as well as a solid foundation for the building of concrete morals and comfort in their place in the world. I could never get into the whole God thing, mostly because I’d already seen too much fucked up shit, but we’re going to raise our child better than that right?” Kon nods. “So they could have that, even if I couldn’t.”

Kon is starting to regret lifting the Brood Ban, but he knows they need complete, no holds barred honesty right now, so he pushes his discomfort aside. “Do you even think it’s possible for us to raise a religious kid? I mean, how would it work?”

Tim shrugs. “I’m not certain, but I know we could figure it out if we tried.” He sighs, reaching across the space between them to take Kon’s hand. “What do you think?”

Absently, Kon strokes his thumb across the back of Tim’s hand as he considers. “The Kents are religious,” he muses aloud. “Christian, I think, though they don’t talk about it much. I’ve never talked about it in depth with Kara and Clark, but I think they both practice Raoism just because if they don’t, it’ll die out.”

Tim remains quiet.

“I just don’t know Tim. I feel like raising a child into a religion is something that needs to be authentic. Trying to sell our kid on something neither of us believes feels like lying, and I think our kid will be smart enough to realize that too.”

“I don’t think it’s lying necessarily, but I understand what you mean.”

Echoes of arguments and differences worn smooth by their years together rest in those words. Their very different—and very contradictory—opinions, definitions, and responses to the word ‘lying’ were a few of the biggest hurdles their relationship ever faced. They’ve worked through it ten times over now, but the shadow of that fundamental misunderstanding still pops up now and again. It’s one jagged edge of many that hasn’t stopped them from fitting together like two parts of a whole.

“I get why you want that for our kid,” Kon says softly, and he does. Tim grew up too fast, and too alone. Kon’s willing to bet this is only the first topic of many that in one way or another is going to be about Tim trying to put into place every safeguard he can to make life easier for their child. “I understand, but I think we can give them all that without religion. I mean, look at us. We’re both fairly secular, and I’d like to think we’re pretty moral. Plus, I can promise with absolute certainty that no child of ours will ever have to question their place in the world. They’ll know it’s with us.”

Tim grimaces slightly, but he also squeezes Kon’s hand. “Right.”

“As for the community, I think between your family, mine, and the rest of our superpowered friends, that’s one thing our child will never have to want for. They’ll be communitied up to the gills. Drowning in that sense of community. Just, absolutely overwhelmed by the—”

“Okay, okay, I get the picture,“ Tim says with a laugh. He sobers quickly. “I think you’re right. It was something I wanted to bring up and talk about, but ultimately I agree. We can raise our kid secularly, and if they find religion on their own, we’ll support them.”

Kon nods. “Obviously. We’ll be upfront with them, and make sure they’re educated about different religions, but we don’t have to push them into anything.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

They’re just nodding at each other now, heads bobbing up and down, and faces kept totally straight, until finally, they break at the same time and the kitchen fills with peels of laughter.

“Did we just succeed at our first parenting hurdle?” Tim asks, once he’s regained his breath.

“I think we did.”

They high five, and it’s not even the dorkiest thing they’ve done in the last week.

“So,” Tim says, and instantly Kon can feel the shift in the air. “That took less time than expected, meaning we’ve got the rest of the night to ourselves with nothing to do.”

“Quite the dilemma,” Kon agrees.

“Got any ideas?”

A wicked grin. “Just one or two."

~~~

Kon rolls off Tim and falls back against his pillow, out of breath and more than happy to be so.

“You know, we won’t be able to do  _ that  _ with a baby around,” Tim says conversationally.

“Put it on a slip and kindly never mention our potential child when I’m naked again, please.”

~~~

“‘Terms of boinking with a child in the house,’” Kon reads off the next morning, completely deadpan.

“Don’t do it?” Tim inquires innocently over the rim of his favorite (reasonably sized) coffee mug.

Kon glares at him. “Don’t do it,” he agrees. Then adds, “We’ll organize some weekend visits to the Kent farm and overnight stays with your various siblings.”

Tim smirks smugly, and looks like he’s just about to say something wildly inappropriate when he suddenly blanches and excuses himself to the bedroom. Kon hears scribbling in the distance and decides it’s a good morning for bacon. Lots of it.

~~~

“Tim, you can’t keep putting the ones you want to talk about conspicuously beside the mug. It’s supposed to be a fair draw.”

“Some issues just feel particularly pressing.”

Kon sighs, and reads Tim’s slip from this morning (they mutually decided the boinking dispute didn’t count). “‘Babysitting privileges?????’ Notably written in your nearly illegible and panicked chicken scratch, with question marks literally trailing off the page.”

“ _ Excuse me _ ? ”

Kon kisses his cheek. “Don’t worry about it babe, I know you’re really good at typing.”

“No, no, if you’ve got opinions about my handwriting, let’s hear them.”

“So anyway, I’d think between your family and mine, babysitting would be pretty well covered, wouldn’t it?”

Tim frowns, but grudgingly accepts the lackadaisical segue. “I’m not worried about having enough sitters, I’m worried about having too many. And I wouldn’t be comfortable hiring anyone we haven’t known for more than two years. Not that I intend on _hiring_ anyone so much as engaging them in unpaid community service, but you know what I mean.”

Kon’s nose scrunches up. “Won’t that be sort of inconvenient? You tend to work pretty late and you know my schedule can be irregular. It’ll be difficult to get someone to pick the kid up from school at 2:30 everyday.”

“That’s true,” Tim concedes, “but considering the frequency of supervillains in our lives, I really don’t trust our kid alone with anyone who could conceivably be a double agent, which includes nearly everyone in our lives that’s not a cape, or an ex-cape.”

“Nearly?” Kon asks, amused.

“There is no way in hell I’m telling Tam that I don’t trust her with my kid because I’m scared she’s a Luthor android sent to abduct them.” Tim shivers. “She’d schedule me into the meetings with communications and PR. Do you know how soul crushing the meetings with communications and PR are, Kon? Grown men have wept.”

“... Okay. Point taken.”

“Anyway, it’s inconvenient, but necessary. I’ve already made a few subtle inquiries with the drill sergeant herself, and if we do this, I think I can tame my schedule into something more reasonable. If we alternate days and maybe get someone to pick the kid up just on Fridays, we can make it work. Most of the schools I’ve looked at offer a care after school program anyway that would all but solve the problem for us.”

Kon is, for a moment, taken aback. “You talked to Tam. And you’re already looking at schools.”

Tim’s cheeks flush red. “I—Of course I’m—” he blusters. “Shut up!”

Kon just grins, sweeping his husband into an embrace, letting himself hover a few feet off the ground. “I love you so much.”

With a put upon sigh, Tim dutifully hugs him back. “I know.”

~~~

“Come on, I know you want to,” Kon taunts holding the mug out to Tim.

“I don’t even care who—fine.” With an _‘are you happy now?’_ tilt of his brows, Tim unceremoniously takes a slip from the top of the mug and reads off, “‘What will our child call us?’ Uh, our names I assume?”

“Okay, I know I was raised in a lab, but I’m ninety percent sure that’s wrong.”

Tim looks at him funny. “I know my upbringing wasn’t normal, but I did have two living parents for the majority of my childhood.” He pauses. “Although I guess I mostly addressed my father as sir.”

Kon squints at him. “That doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know enough about appropriate parental relationships to dispute it.”

They’re quiet for a minute. “Maybe we should… check with someone?” Tim suggests.

They call Clark, and ten minutes later, pressed against Kon’s chest for comfort, Tim says, “My child is not referring to me as _‘pa.’”_ The word comes out in a horrified, but otherwise perfect imitation of the Kent’s country drawl.

Kon runs a soothing hand up and down his back. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll raise them with a proper Gotham accent.”

Tim replies, voice muffled against Kon’s shoulder, “It’s more about dialect but okay. And they’re more likely to have a Frankenstein’s monster patchwork of both our accents.”

Tim’s accent isn’t even proper Gotham anyway. He was raised in high society, so his voice has mostly been smoothed into an even cadence that doesn’t belong to any one region by an endless parade of tutors and governesses, although there is the occasional phrase or word that comes out pure Gothamite. Which is to say, when he curses he sounds like he’s been pulled straight from the muddy waters of Gotham’s bay.

Kon’s is the same, but with a distinctive drawl on certain niceties taught to him by ma and pa instead of Gotham’s brand of cussing out your enemies like they’ve offended your blood line.

Tim pulls himself out of Kon’s shoulder and the mortification of imagining some small child calling him ‘pa’ and says, “I think maybe we should just stick with dad.”

“Good idea,” The way Kon’s nodding at him is scary. It’s not the ‘I totally agree’ nod, it’s the ‘Tim isn’t gonna like this but…’ nod. “ _ But _ , it’ll be confusing is they call us both dad, won’t it? Maybe—this is just an idea—they should call one of us something else. Like, daddy or pop.”

Tim stares at him for a long time. “You know what? I think this is one our kid can decide for themselves.”

~~~

“Tim?”

“What is it?”

Kon stares at his husband’s printed handwriting—the blocky kind Tim reserves for blueprints that’s impeccably neat, and impossible to misread. “Can you open a bottle of wine please?”

Frowning, Tim takes the slip from him and reads it. He stares at it for a long time. “Yeah,” his voice cracks ever so slightly on the word. “I’ll do that.”

In minutes, they’re settled on the couch, Kon with a mug for convenience, and Tim with a wine glass because he doesn’t know how to  _ not  _ be a classy snob. They leave a foot of space between them, and on the coffee table like a loaded weapon they don’t know what to do with (except Tim would know exactly what to do with a loaded weapon) rests a slip of paper with just six words on it. _’How are we going to conceive?’_

They sit there for a long while.

“Okay, I’m just gonna say it,” Tim finally says. “You were… born,” he chooses the word delicately, “from a mix of Superman and Lex Luthor’s DNA. It is entirely possible for our child to be biologically _ours._ ”

“You know I don’t want that,” Kon snaps. “I don’t want my child being a clone.”

Tim rests a reassuring hand on Kon’s knee. “Hey, don’t say that like it’s a bad thing. You are wonderful. _All_ of you.”

This is so far from the first time that they’ve had an exchange like this that Kon feels almost pathetic that it still affects him so much. He’s  _ better  _ now. He’s not supposed to get worked up about it anymore.

He takes a few deep breaths, willing calm into his veins like Tim taught him to years ago. “I know that,” he says when he knows it will come out steady, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want better for my child. Isn’t that the whole point?”

“Of course it is,” Tim’s thumb rubs absent circles against Kon’s knee. “But what happened to you was wrong for two reasons: lack of consent, and lack of care. Lex stole Clark’s DNA, and then left you to be raised in the lab.” His face scrunches up apologetically as he says it. Neither of them is enjoying this, but it needs to be said to have this conversation. “We would both be consenting, and we will love our child unconditionally. It would be different.”

Kon sighs, covering Tim’s hand with his own to take the bite out of his next words. “You know how much I love the thought of a child that’s a mix of you and me, but I also want our kid to be normal. You’ve seen how hard it’s been for Jon growing up, and it would be so much harder for…” Kon’s face is scrunched up in pain. “Yes, our child could have powers like me, but maybe it’d be better if they were human.”

“Kon… ”

“No, Tim. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m not comfortable using Lex’s cloning technology to have our child. If not because of the difficulties it would cause, then because it would involve  _ him  _ in their life. I don’t want him anywhere near this.”

Tim squeezes his knee. “We could handle Lex.”

“There are going to be so many threats to our child’s safety, Tim. Do you really want to add another? One that’s as powerful as Lex?”

“Lex will target our kid no matter what.”

“Which is exactly why we shouldn’t give him more ammo.” Kon sighs, and leans toward Tim until their foreheads are pressed together. “Our kid will be brave, and compassionate, and intelligent no matter where they come from. We don’t need to clone ourselves for that. We just have to love them, and be there for them.”

When Tim sighs, his breath ghosts against Kon’s mouth. “Every time you say that, it kills me.”

Kon changes their positions to pull Tim into his lap, cradling his husband close. “Tell me.”

Tim buries his face in Kon’s shirt, and does. “I’m so scared I’m going to fuck it up. We haven’t done more than talk about the _possibility_ of having a child and I already love them so much—how is that possible?” His breath is coming faster now. “What if I’m not good enough for them? What if I end up hurting them because I’m too distant, or what I feel for them isn’t enough, or _I’m_ not enough? I just thought that if our kid has my DNA, maybe they’ll be like me. Maybe they’ll be cold and detached—and if they can be like that, maybe they’ll never get their heart _broken_ —”

“Tim.” Kon’s voice is calm and soothing, drowning out the one in Tim’s head. “Sweetheart, none of that is going to happen.”

Tears prick the corners of Tim’s eyes. He fists his hands in Kon’s shirt and tucks himself in tighter.

“You are one of the most loving men I know and our child will be lucky to have a father as amazing as you, no matter where they come from. You  _ are  _ enough."

Tim shakes, and cries, and lets himself be comforted, and when the tears dry up, he mumbles. “‘M sorry.”

“For what?” Kon replies, carding his fingers through Tim’s hair.

“This is your soft spot, _I_ should be comforting _you,_ not getting snot all over your shirt.”

Kon snorts. “I think your shiny new fear of fatherhood can take precedence over my antique daddy issues for a few minutes.”

Tim laughs weakly. “Thanks.”

“Should we put this one back in the jar then?”

“Yes please.”

~~~

After last night, they’re both holding their breath when Kon draws the next slip.

“Ready?” he asks his husband.

“Can’t possibly be worse than the last one, so sure. Go for it.”

With a grimace of agreement, Kon reads, “‘Last name?’”

Tim nods gravely. “I feared this might happen,” at the same time Kon adds “Thank god, this should be an easy one.”

They stare at each other a moment.

“There’s only three options,” Kon points out.

“Not including hyphenations.”

“Still.”

They’d both kept their last names after getting married. Changing Tim’s wasn’t even really possible considering the celebrity around his current one, and Kon wasn’t overly fond of giving up his own either. It wasn’t something that had particularly mattered to either of them, so in the end it was simple to just take the path of least resistance and leave them as they were.

“Kon, it’s not really about the last name itself,” Tim says, “it’s about the message it will send. If we send our child out into the world as a Drake or a Wayne, they’re going to live by a very different set of rules and expectations than if we send them out as a Kent.”

Kon frowns. “That’s ridiculous Tim. They’ll be related to you and Bruce either way.”

Tim shakes his head like Kon is a poor innocent fool. “Names hold meaning in places like Gotham. Think about it, Dick Wayne was paraded around at galas as every rich old lady’s favorite plaything. Dick _Grayson_ got to leave Gotham to be a lowly police grunt, and the press  _ let  _ him. Those piranhas didn’t care about him because Bruce raised him, they cared because he was Bruce’s heir. He was going to inherit the money, the company, the power—all of it, and giving him the family name symbolized that.”

“What,” Kon says, “the fuck.”

His husband just nods knowingly. “I know. It’s media bullshit, but we have to be very careful about this. You know how difficult it was at first to keep you out of the spotlight, and even now we have to make joint appearances every now and then to stave off the questions about my impending divorce and your affairs.”

“Who was it I slept with last week?” Kon asks amusedly.

“Damian,” Tim mutters darkly. “Fucking gossip columnists.”

“They catch him at the farm one time… ” Kon muses.

“My point is, do we want that for our child? The pressure is intense, and awful, but at the same time it’s undeniable how many doors a name like Drake or Wayne could open for them.”

Kon sighs. “I don’t know Tim. I _can’t_ know. My gut says to keep our kid the hell away from all of it, but you know better than I do how bad that stuff can really be. I think this is your call.”

“No.” Tim’s voice is quiet, but firm. “That is _not_ how we’re doing things. We are a team, Kon, and we’re making all of our decisions together, so if you say you don’t want our kid in the media, that counts for something.”

Kon blinks, taken off guard, but it melts quickly into a soft smile. He pulls his husband against his chest into a gentle embrace, kissing the crown of his head. It’s not the sentiment that’s got him so warm and fuzzy exactly—he’s never doubted they’re in this together—it’s just the absolutely mind boggling progress they’ve gained over almost a decade of being together.

At the start of their relationship—at the middle of it, even—Tim would have taken Kon’s permission and run with it. He’d been perfectly content to lead and let Kon follow, and in its own way, that dynamic had served their relationship just fine. Kon had never minded it, but then he hadn’t known what it would be like to properly share everything. He couldn’t possibly have imagined their relationship as it is now, the line between the two of them melted and blurred until there can be no doubt that they’re on even footing. 

“Okay,” he says, lips still pressed against Tim’s hair.

His husband squeezes him once in response before stepping back. “Then here are the facts: as a Wayne, our child will be Gotham royalty. They’ll never escape the press, but no one will ever tell them no either. A certain number of public events and community engagement is all but unavoidable, though we can shield them from the worst of it, and hey, maybe they’ll even end up liking some of the charities.”

Damian had. There’s hardly an animal rights organization left in the city that isn’t linked to his name in some way or another.

“The Drake name is a slightly diluted version. Our child will be viewed by the general public as solely mine instead of merely another extension of Bruce, which is a plus, but they’ll also have to deal with the usual variety of inappropriate questions about my parents from the press. The Drake name isn’t as powerful to the general public as Wayne, but it is more… ” he smirks, “fearsome in the business world.”

Tim takes a perhaps excessive amount of pleasure in scaring the shit out of grown men in a boardroom. Kon couldn’t be more proud.

There’s a notable pause before Tim continues, like he’s debating whether to add the next bit or not. At length, he steels his expression and says, “Also if our child doesn’t take the Drake name, it will die with me.”

It’s a loaded statement, and one Tim’s clearly conflicted about. Considering the environment he grew up in, it’s impossible for Tim to not care at least a little bit about the name dying out, but the practical part of him fights valiantly against the oversentimentality. Then of course there’s the added layer of his feelings about Jack and Janet, which are, frankly, a mess.

Kon tangles their fingers together and gives Tim’s hand a reassuring squeeze. His husband flashes him a smile and forges ahead. “As a Kent, it will be much easier to keep our kid out of the media spotlight. Not entirely possible of course, but for the most part we’d be able to manage it. They won’t have to deal with any preconceptions or expectations either. I… honestly can’t think of a downside.”

“What about hyphenating?” Kon asks.

“That’s an option. A lot of hyphenated names have a tendency to get cut down to one or the other in most situations.” He would know. “Still, it would be a good way to get the best of both worlds.”

Kon says, “Then I vote Drake-Kent. We can have them use Kent in public to avoid the press attention, but they’ll still carry your name.”

Tim nods slowly. “Yeah, I like that.”

“Okay great because that took way longer than expected.”

Tim laughs. “Got somewhere to be, Kent?”

“Maybe I do, Drake. Gonna ask me and find out?”

~~~

They draw the school question the next night, but it’s less of a discussion and more of a presentation as Tim lays out all the research he’s done with an accompanying power point. Kon nods along seriously for as long as he can before he breaks down laughing.

Eventually they decide on a private school education in Gotham like Tim had. And that’s that.

Until Conner points out how much of an absolute nerd their kid is going to be, and productivity ceases for the night.

~~~

“ _Finally_.”

“What is it?”

“We really should have started with this one,” Tim mutters, frowning at the slip. He shakes himself, clearing his throat and putting his whole body into portraying the incredulity of the question. “‘Kids,  _ plural? _ ”

Kon snorts. “Seriously?”

“Of course. It’s an important question.”

Kon runs a hand through his hair self consciously. “I don’t know, Tim. I’d like to have more than one I think, but wouldn’t it be a decision better saved for at least a year after our first one?"

“That makes sense.”

“I mean, I’d love for our child to grow up with a sibling.”

Tim’s face softens. “I know.”

Kon hadn’t gotten off to the smoothest start with his little brother, but he and Jon have only grown closer over the years. Seeing them together… it always puts a special kind of ache in Tim’s chest.

He loves that Kon has that, but a small part of him will always be envious. He and Dick might come close to the sort of relationship Kon and Jon have, but the truth will always be that Dick came into his life too late. Tim was already damaged goods, and he was a few good years away from making himself whole again.

He loves all his brothers, but with them, it will never be simple.

He covers Kon’s hand with his own. “I do too.”

They don’t say it outright, but when Kon smiles at him hopefully, Tim returns it. Not a decision, but good enough for now.

~~~

The question of housing was all but answered when they talked about schools, but they go through the motions of the debate anyway.

“Just saying, our kid is going to get black lung just from existing in Gotham,” Kon says.

Tim snorts. “I’ll have you know, those tests came back negative. It was an unrelated and isolated phenomenon. Besides, a little exposure to toxin at a young age is good for the immune system.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“Of course I am. But seriously, Wayne Enterprises did the research ourselves, and Gotham is  _ safe _ . Medically speaking anyway. Micro exposure due to dispersed chemical gas in the air has been all but eliminated since Bruce funded that clean air project a decade ago, and anyway, seriously bad medical issues were incredibly uncommon even then.”

Kon quirks an eyebrow, crossing his arms. “Then why install the air purifiers?”

“Um,” Tim glances away. “Okay, so the non life threatening medical issues were a little more common—but only barely! Mostly it was just a few… weird side effects that cropped up.”

Kon’s grin is lupine. “Care to elaborate further?”

“... ”

_ “Tim.” _

“Not everyone’s experience was the same,” he says defensively. “Some people got intense nightmares or heightened generalized anxiety from the fear toxin, but some people actually became somewhat inoculated to fear. Like, they were maybe a little worryingly unafraid. I really think we’d both be happier if I didn’t go into details on what prolonged exposure to small amounts of Poison Ivy’s concoctions did to the people who lived around the park.”

Kon blanches. “ _ Why _ does anyone still live there?”

“Hey!” Like a switch being flipped, Tim goes from abashed to defensive. “That’s my home you’re talking about.”

“My question stands.”

Tim crosses his own arms, squaring his shoulders until he’s facing Kon head on. “You wouldn’t get it, but Gotham is more than its worst parts. Gotham is its people, a people who are statistically more likely to be societal rejects in some form or another than nearly any other city population. Who are brave, and stubborn, and absolutely refuse to back down, even in the face of insurmountable odds. They are fighters, every one of them. So you can back the hell off.”

Kon sighs, putting his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I get it. It’s a hot mess, but it’s  _ your  _ hot mess. Sorry for doubting.”

Tim sniffs imperiously. “You got that right.”

“Smallville during the summer though, right?”

“Oh, of course. God, can you imagine? The city smells like hot garbage in the summer.”

~~~

Then they draw the conception slip again, and the wine makes a reappearance.

“Okay, so we’ve ruled out cloning. That leaves either adoption or surrogacy,” Tim says. He’s elected to forgo the wine glass all together tonight, so they’re slumped on the kitchen floor, backs pressed against opposite cabinets as they pass the wine bottle between them. Tim’s lips are quickly becoming flushed with the drink.

“Do you want to use a surrogate?” Kon asks a little dubiously.

Tim considers, twisting his wrist to watch the wine swirl around in the glass bottle. “My parents considered using a surrogate,” he says.

Something in Tim’s voice makes Kon hesitate. Tentatively, he takes the bottle from Tim, and asks, “How do you know that?”

“My mother told me. Often. Generally in the context of how having me utterly wrecked her body and how it was a prideful mistake to even bother since I ended up looking like my father anyway.” His head thunks back against the hardwood, eyes falling closed. “The funniest part is, once puberty hit I ended up looking more like her, but by then she was too dead to be smug about it.”

Kon hisses in a breath. “Damn.” He takes a swig of the wine for both of them, and lets the confession sit for a moment. He’s long since stopped being surprised by the Drakes’ many failures as parents.

Kon knows his husband's moods, and knows this one in particular. He recognizes the way Tim’s brilliant mind starts to drift to darker and darker places. Knows that if left to his own devices, Tim will start to retreat into himself. He’ll go quiet first—and he doesn’t just mean that Tim will stop talking, either. It’s like Tim loses solidity. He drifts around the apartment like he isn’t even really there, unresponsive and completely silent. Like he’s become a ghost.

Eventually, he has a tendency to just vanish. It scared the everloving shit out of Kon the first few times it happened after they started living together. He’d be trying to give Tim some space to sort through things, and then his boyfriend would just be gone.

Tim would come back though. They fought like hell about it afterwards, but he always came back.

Eventually Kon realized that no matter what Bat bullshit Tim spewed, what he needed wasn’t space. Silence, maybe. But not space.

In these moments where it seems like Tim might just be fading away, what he needs is to be held. He needs Kon’s kindness, and his presence to remind him that there’s something to come back to in the here and now. That wherever his thoughts are pulling him, things are going to be okay because he loves someone, and they love him back.

Tim’s never needed a white knight, but that doesn’t mean he wants to face his dragons in solitude.

When he feels the silence has gone on long enough, Kon stretches out his legs until he can brush Tim’s thigh with his foot. “We’re going to do better, remember?” he says softly.

Tim opens his eyes to peer at Kon, his mouth twitching upwards. “Yeah.”

“So?” Kon prompts.

Tim pulls his head away from the cabinet with the strength of, well, Superman, and Kon obligingly passes him the bottle.

“I think,” Tim says slowly after a sip, “that if I’m not willing to leave my child with a stranger for babysitting, then I’m not particularly interested in having a stranger carry them either. Adoption is a good choice.”

Kon nods. “I agree. There are too many kids out there who don’t have a home.”

It hardly needs to be added that the majority of Tim’s family, including he himself, were once such children.

Tim says, “That still leaves us with questions though. How old do we want to adopt? Are we going to try and adopt a newborn, or will we adopt from foster care?”

There isn’t an immediate response. It’s a long time, and another inch or so of wine before Kon finally says, “It feels selfish not to help all those older kids and teenagers in foster care, but… I keep imagining holding our baby in my arms and I… ” He’s tearing up.

Why do they drink? Ever? It’s already made Tim melancholy, and now it’s threatening to reduce Kon to a blubbering mess.

Silently, Tim crawls across the few feet between them until he’s leaning against the cabinet beside Kon, nestling into his husband’s side. Kon obligingly drapes his arm across Tim’s shoulders.

“I know, sweetheart,” Tim whispers soothingly, and the solid presence of him settles something in Kon’s chest. “It’s okay to want that. I want that too.”

Still lost for words, Kon just holds Tim tighter.

“Maybe we can talk about adopting someone a little older after we try with our first one,” Tim suggests. “God knows we’ll be sick enough of changing diapers by then.”

Kon laughs. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Tim echoes.

Kon lets his eyes fall shut, focusing on the steady beat of his husband’s heart. Close as they are, he hardly needs superhearing to follow the rhythm of it, but he uses it anyway.

“I can start the research tomorrow,” Tim murmurs, but his voice sounds distant.

Neither of them bothers to get up for a long time.

~~~

“So, there’s no way we could hide our superhero identities from our children,” Kon says bluntly.

In response, Tim only raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, there’s no way _I_ could hide my identity,” Kon corrects with a roll of his eyes.

Tim nods once in satisfaction. “You’re right. It’s a shitty thing to do to a kid, making them keep a secret that big, but it’s an even shittier thing to lie to them about such a large part of ourselves.” He smirks. “And really, any child of mine is going to be good at keeping secrets anyway. It’s only natural.”

“Can’t wait until they’re a teenager,” Kon mutters, already imagining the stress headaches he’s going to get.

“The real question is what do we do when they want to get involved in it.” Kon frowns like he wants to argue, then deflates. “Yeah, okay. I guess I can’t really imagine any child of ours not wanting to become a superhero at some point in their life.” The fact that they’d love and support their child either way doesn’t need to be said. After a moment of hesitation, Kon adds, “Tim, I don’t think we should let them.”

“I doubt we’d be able to stop them.”

“If we treated them fairly, and explained that if it’s still what they want when they’re eighteen that we’ll help them, I think we could.”

Tim frowns. “Historically, that hasn’t worked for literally anybody.”

“Fair point,” Kon concedes, “but think about all the times an adult told us no. It always came with a healthy side of condescension, and most of it was after we’d already proven ourselves capable. If our kid never gets out in the field in the first place, then they’ll have less ground to stand on in the argument. Besides, if we tell them from a young age what the rule is going to be, and we don’t ever change it, they’ll be more accepting of it. We—and to be honest most of our friends—rebelled because adults treated us like children only after we’d been so traumatized and battle tested that everything they said was a vast oversimplification and generally infantilizing. Our kid is going to have so much more time to grow up than we did, but only if we protect them from going through the same experiences as we had.”

Tim honestly looks like he’s about to cry, so Kon hugs him, and rages a little at the universe as he always does that nobody did this for Tim when he was young.

Tim does not, in fact, cry, but he does cling to Kon’s shoulders like he’s scared of falling. “You’re right. There might be too much of me in them for it to work, but yeah. Let’s try."

“Too much of you? Not possible.”

“You giant fucking  _ sap, _ ” Tim says, but it’s muffled against Kon’s shirt and by his own sniffles.

~~~

“Hey, Kon, would our child be like a quarter Kryptonian? Is that how that works?”

“Uh, maybe?” Kon frowns. “I don’t think I’m qualified to pass on the ancient traditions of Krypton.”

“Should we contract that out to Clark and Kara then?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Cool.”

~~~

After they’ve cleared the dishes from dinner, Kon and Tim settle across from each other at their small dining room table, and stare at the coffee mug Kon’s placed between them. It’s rim has a small chip in it, Tim notices. Tim definitely does not notice that there’s only one slip of paper left in it. Nope. No siree.

“Are you ready?” Kon asks softly, an exact echo from the first slip they drew two weeks ago.

Tim just nods.

Kon pulls the mug toward him, removing the slip as carefully as if it were rigged to explode. The delicacy of his motions makes Tim impatient, but he swallows his nervous urge to snap, and lets his husband move at his own pace. Finally, Kon reads, “‘First name?’”

Tim’s head tilts to the side. “If our kid is a quarter Kryptonian, do you want to give them a Kryptonian name?”

Kon considers. “Not sure we can. On legal documentation, I mean. Too dangerous.”

“True, but we can include it as part of their name unofficially. At home and stuff.”

Kon shakes his head. “I’m… not sure. Maybe it’s something we can give them for honorary purposes, but I don’t think it’s something I want to call them by. Do you want to name them after someone in your family? That seems to be a fairly common Earth tradition.”

Tim cringes. “No thanks. I don’t think my kid needs that burden on their shoulders. I’d prefer something they can call their own.”

“Okay,” Kon says. “Are we really starting from scratch, or do we want to pull from mythology or literature or religious texts or literally any database that isn’t just the whole of human history?”

“Do we have to name them right away? Could we maybe wait to get a feel for their personality first.”

“And what do you propose we call them until then?” Kon asks, eyebrow flicking up. “‘Kid?’ ‘Child?’ ‘Young’n?’”

Tim shudders. “Point.”

“How about we just throw out a few ideas, yeah?”

“Right, no ideas are bad ideas,” Tim agrees.

“How about, Billy?”

“As in Batson? No.”

“David?”

Tim looks thoughtful. “That is the name of Kirk’s son from Wrath of Khan… ”

“So no then. You’re turn.”

“Okay… Kira?”

“I actually sort of like that one.”

“Benjamin?”

“Nothing against it.”

“Is it just me, or are you being way more positive about my suggestions than I was about yours a second ago?” Tim asks.

Kon grins. “Definitely not just you. Take notes babe. How about Jamie?”

“No can do. I knew a very nice henchman by that name who tried to separate me from several of my ribs.”

“Okay then,” Kon says with no small amount of concern. “Karen?”

“Do you  _ want  _ our child to be bullied?”

Kon shoots him a look. “Your notes have been subpar, C minus.”

Tim shrugs. “I’m doing what I have to to protect our child,” he replies solemnly. “How about Katherine?”

“I… really like that one.”

“Why thank you, I’ll be here all night.”

“Why do you have to make it so hard… ” Kon mutters. “Okay, Mary.”

“Can’t, that one’s reserved for Dick.”

“John?”

“Is the Martian Manhunter. And also too basic.”

“I’ve always liked the name Alex.”

Tim opens his mouth, but pauses. “Huh. That’s not bad.”

Kon grins at him triumphantly. “Score.”

Frowning at him, Tim replies stiffly, “Have some decorum, Kent. This is the christening of our child we’re discussing here.”

“Oh, of course. Pardon me.”

“You’re pardoned.”

Kon rolls his eyes. “Look, I think this might be one area that we don’t have to nail down right now. The adoption process will take months, and I’m sure we’ll come up with a thousand more options to choose from in the meantime, so what do you say we declare this one void?”

Tim looks down at his hands. “It’s the last one,” he says quietly.

Sighing, Kon reaches across the table to take Tim’s hands in his. “It doesn’t have to be. I’m sure we can think up a few things that we’ve forgotten. If you want.”

Tim shakes his head, slowly at first, but gaining resolution. “No. No, I think we’re done.”

Kon brushes a thumb over the back of his hand. “Okay.”

When Tim finds the courage to look up, his eyes meet Kon’s, and he’s smiling. It’s small, and tentative, but there’s hope shining behind his eyes so bright that it takes Kon’s breath away. 

“Kon, we’re going to have a baby,” he says, and it’s like he’s cracked open a dam somewhere in Kon’s heart. He’s been holding himself back, just in case, but now… now it all comes flooding forward.

Kon grins. Then he laughs. Then he’s on his feet and around the table, scooping Tim up into his arms and spinning his husband around. Tim laughs with him, wrapping his arms around Kon’s neck.

“We’re having a baby!” Kon cries, practically bursting with it.

Tim cups Kon’s face with his hands, and when the half Kryptonian stops spinning long enough to really look at him, the tentative smile has bloomed into a wide grin. His ice chip blue eyes are sparkling with unshed tears, and when he presses their foreheads together, Kon thinks he can feel the happiness radiating from his husband.

“We’re going to make a family,” Tim whispers, and kisses him before he can respond.

Slowly and without breaking their kiss, Kon lowers his husband to the ground. When he pulls back, it’s not far. “We’ve got to tell  _ everyone _ ,” Kon says.

Tim laughs, casually tangling his fingers in the hair at the base of Kon’s neck. “Everyone can wait a little longer, I think,” he says, giving the strands a small tug.

Kon suppresses a groan of pleasure. “Yes. Yes they can.”

~~~

About a year later, Tim and Kon stand in a hospital, staring at their baby girl through a window. Clark, Lois, and Bruce are all in a waiting room somewhere close by, and the rest of their friends and family are waiting to celebrate on the farm, but this moment is for just the two of them.

Kon reaches across the near nonexistent space between them and takes Tim’s hand. “She’s beautiful,” he whispers, because this place and time are too big for anything louder than that.

“She is,” Tim agrees, giving Kon’s hand a squeeze. “Our Katherine.”

Emotion wells in Kon’s chest, too heavy and too large to even name. “I love you, Tim. I love _her._ ”

“I know. I do too.”

In two years they’ll be dropping her off at preschool, and terrified of being apart from her for so long. In five, it’ll be kindergarten and they’ll glow with pride when she comes home to tell them about a new friend she’s made. In ten, they’ll go all out on an oversized birthday party with a cake as tall as her and a bouncy castle to boot. She’ll spend the whole day smiling. In fifteen she’ll go on her first date, and Kon will spend the whole three hours she’s gone tapping his foot and staring out the window. In sixteen, Tim will teach her to drive with as much patience as he can, keeping a death grip on the chicken handles the whole time. In eighteen they’ll help her move into a dorm, and Kon will spend the whole ride home crying.

Life is unpredictable, and all of these things are not true, but the feelings behind the memories-yet-to-be are as real as anything. The only form of predestination that Tim is more than happy to accept.

He wraps his arms around his husband’s waist, and Kon drapes his over Tim’s shoulders.

“Kon?”

The man in question drops a kiss to the top of Tim’s head. “Yeah?”

“I suggested Katherine after Captain Janeway from _Star Trek: Voyager._ ”

“You little—”

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Ending my beautiful final scene with a dumb joke is a cheap tactic and the ultimate bathos sin
> 
> Me, but hidden in the shadows with dramatic fog and a clown nose: but I’m going to do it anyway.
> 
> Tumblr @violet-witch-6


End file.
